Great info for genealogy content providers. All the latest industry news based on press releases issued by genealogy vendors, societies, educators and other service providers.

Findmypast Friday: Highlights from the Crime & Punishment collection, and new Newspapers and Anglo-Boer War Records

This week’s Findmypast Friday includes even more illuminating Crime and Punishment-related collections, in addition to updates to our Anglo-Boer War update and Newspaper Collection. Our incredibly detailed new prison records can shed light on a convict’s life with details which go far beyond their identity and sentence. Pore over photograph albums and trial calendars, and delve into journals from governors, chaplains and surgeons…

Treasury Departmental Accounts Convict Hulks contains over 158,250 records from the accounts held by the Treasury Department for the various convict hulks around England.

They contain quarterly accounts covering the hulks Bellerophon, Justicia, Captivity, Laurel, Leviathan, Portland, Retribution, Prudentia, Stanislaus and Savage between 1804 and 1831 as well as departmental accounts from 1558 to 1937.

Containing over 632,000 records, PCOM 2 consists of a variety of documents concerning prisons and prisoners held by the Prison Commission and the Home Office. The records cover prisons all over England and Wales, including Pentonville, Chatham, Portsmouth, Millbank and Wormwood Scrubs prisons.

There are also records for Gibraltar prison, army prisoners held in the Savoy prison in Middlesex and a number hulks. The collection offers an incredibly detailed look at an individual convict’s life in prison, going far beyond the details of their conviction and prisoner number.

Our British Newspaper Collection has grown by over 800,000 new articles, and now stands at over 126.5 million fully searchable articles from 358 local, regional and national newspaper titles from around England, Scotland and Wales.19 new titles have been added, and 17 existing titles have been supplemented with additional articles.

Almost 900 new records have just been added to our collection of Anglo-Boer War Records, 1899-1902. This unique database of more than 470 sources records the details of individual soldiers who served in the British Army during the Second Boer War.

The entire register now contains over 293,000 records, including a list of over 59,000 casualties. Each record includes a transcript of the original source material that can include information such as name, service number, rank, regiment and honours.

Remember to check our dedicated Findmypast Fridays page every week to keep up to date with the latest new additions.

About Findmypast
Findmypast (previously DC Thomson Family History) is a British-owned world leader in online genealogy. It has an unrivalled record of online innovation in the field of family history and 18 million registered users across its family of online brands, which includes Mocavo, Genes Reunited, The British Newspaper Archive amongst others.

Its lead brand, also called Findmypast, is a searchable online archive of over two billion family history records, from parish records and censuses to migration records, military collections, historical newspapers and lots more. For members around the world, the site is a crucial resource for building family trees and doing detailed historical research.

In April 2003 Findmypast was the first to provide access to the complete birth, marriage, and death indexes for England & Wales, winning the Queen’s Award for Innovation. Since that time, the company has digitised records from across the globe, including major collections from Britain, Ireland, Australia, and the United States.